Summary: Edward Said, Orientalism
Editor’s Note: For this assignment, I needed to read and summarize the published piece or content listed below, and then provide a response or assessment of the writing.
Said, Edward W. Orientalism. Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978.
Summary
Said begins his introduction of Orientalism by explaining that the Orient was a construct of Europe. Through this construction of the Orient, Europe also defined itself in an opposite structure. Said defines Orientalism as “an ontological and epistemological distinction made between ‘the Orient’ and (most of the time) ‘the Occident,’” which has been institutionalized in every aspect of Westerners’ lives, including literature, politics, science, the military, and society. Said believes Orientalism was created not only because Europeans were able to craft such a belief system, but also because the people of the Orient allowed that construction to happen. He also states that the ideas behind Orientalism are so strongly held that even if someone were to point out inaccuracies, the beliefs would still hold. Said makes the claim that British, French, and American writers and researchers had definite ides about the Orient and included those ideas in their writing and research findings, which perpetuated Orientalism. He believes that text written about the Orient is premised on exteriority, and the writers and researchers never truly enter the Orient to understand it or remove any previous biases that they may hold prior to conducting their research or writing about the Orient. Said introduces the basis for his analysis and explains that he will focus on texts from numerous academic fields to prove his points about Orientalism. He concludes by explaining a bit about his personal experience with Orientalism as an “Oriental” growing up in British colonies. His passion for the subject seemed steeped, at least in part, in his personal experiences with Orientalism and racism.
Response
Said’s Orientalism is a concept that seems related to, but goes one step beyond stereotyping. Falling more in line with Marx’s definition of ideological discourse, I saw Orientalism as basically a specific ideology.
Overall, I thought Said’s introduction to his analysis was well crafted and covered bases that other scholars might bring up or question. I did think his closing about his personal experience with Orientalism biased him a bit about the subject, and I was kind of surprised at how much personal information he included in such a short section of the introduction. I can understand his need for full disclosure, and maybe that was front and center in his mind when he wrote the book, working to not appear biased to his readers even though he is clearly very passionate about the subject.
In a way, I thought he might be subtly arguing for the development of another literary theory: Orientalism. In his last few paragraphs where he talks about his personal investment in this subject matter based on his personal life experiences with Orientalism, he emphasized his belief that literature cannot be studied without also studying society. This idea aligns with historicism, but because Said is obviously so focused on Orientalism, I got the impression he wanted some new type of literary theory that examines literature in conjunction with society or history and the views and ideologies of the literary writers as they pertain to the Orient. He went so far as to state that he sees Orientalism influences in every literary genre and throughout all time periods since Orientalism was developed, so it seemed as if he was leading into something more than just his specific topic at hand. Of course, I could easily be mistaken with that impression.
On a different note, I thought his belief that Orientalism is not something that any one person could dispel through the use of actual facts was interesting. He seems resigned to the idea that Orientalism is here to stay, whether people work to break up that ideology or not. Perhaps because Said views Orientalism as so pervasive and so ingrained in every aspect of literature and society, he doesn’t believe it will ever be dispelled? I do wonder if he would still have that belief today. I understand that breaking an ideology and creating a new ideology are both very difficult and potentially long processes, but it seems as though a growing number of people in today’s world are more accepting of certain ideologies being eliminated or altered. I think you can see those changing ideologies in areas such as gay rights and minority rights. In general, I think people’s ideas about culture are constantly evolving, and with the onset and proliferation of social media usage by people of all ages and throughout all regions of the world (at least in large part—I know some areas are still censored quite a bit), people have a much broader and more immediate platform to spread word about their ideologies that I think it might not be quite as impossible as Said insinuates to create a new ideology for his equivalent of the Orient.